Parliament & trans equality

September 17, 2016

Meet Julia Cushion, your new Westminster UK ‘Outreach and Engagement Officer’ for Parliament’s Department of Information. She can’t tell you what she thinks about politics, except that she thinks Lesbians and Feminists are “awful people” for wanting representation in policy that effects us. Good Luck Westminster lesbians and feminists!

Your ‘Outreach and Engagement Officer’ thinks you – and every feminist ally with concerns about over-broad “Gender Identity” statutes, the legal codification of sex stereotypes, the elimination of lesbian rights to lesbian spaces, and the medicalization of gender non-compliance in children (among other issues) are “awful people”. She wants you to know it so I’m reblogging her post here. Do make a note of it.

I find this interesting. In her post of September 2, Ms. Julia Cushion describes her new position as Outreach and Engagement Officer for Westminster. She explains that a condition of her Parliamentary service is that she must remain apolitical. See screencap here:

Yet on September 17, she writes a post describing the brilliant lesbian and Women’s Rights activists, authors, and educators who spoke at the Women’s Equality forum, including the renowned Lesbian Feminist author and professor Sheila Jeffreys, as “awful people” because Ms. Julia Cushion is against lesbian and women’s rights to representation.

Not only are lesbian and feminist politics “awful” to Ms. Cushion, but we are “awful people” entirely. See Julia Cushion’s relevant statements here:

Now, I’m not going to call Julia Cushion an “awful person” for sharing her homophobic and misogynist views. Clearly she is a completely uninformed about the issues as she admits herself. She knows nothing about transgender people, lesbians or feminism.

That someone so completely clueless might lunge clumsily and publicly in defense of a politics they’ve never deeply considered is not unique.

What I find interesting is that Ms. Cushion believes that lesbian and feminist concerns are so maligned that publicly bashing lesbians and feminists as “awful people” is a position safe to take- even for an individual whose government position is conditioned on impartiality. The hatred of lesbians and feminists expressed by Ms. Cushion- not just politically, but as people, is remarkable.

I was at the meeting. Much that was fascinating. When Maria Miller left the room Ruth Cadbury mp was chairing. In response to comments from us that the feminist submissions to the inquiry were ignored she said that there were so many submissions and they just did not have time to get to the feminist ones. In response to Sheila Jeffreys talking about clash of rights and that men who transgender need separate facilities because their pattern of violence against women was the same as those who did not transgender, Ruth said not all men were violent. She then went on to tell us that she was even married to one. She then did a hymn of praise to men who transgender and said that many women really supported them.

In the Guardian the same day, Maria Miller, chair of committee was quoted saying that it was some feminists like Germaine Greer who stood in the way of transgender equality.

Dr Jay Stewart MBE (you get honours for this stuff) from Gendered Intelligence who was on the panel and was responsible for the artwork at the Science Museum about male and female brains asked why we could not just all be nice and use the names and sex details that persons preferred. Amazing that Jay is an expert to govt committee considering the Science Museum stuff! A man who has transgendered from Transmedia watch, Helen, told us that no point arguing about gender identity, he had made a choice but really it was just like the soul, some people believed in it and some did not.

The event was pretty astonishing. Many very big and very tall men who have transgendered and were wearing quite peculiar dresses, and a couple of small women who have transgendered, with beards. At one point someone on panel asked why there were so few men in the room. Hilarious. Only one man there who was not in dress. One day the idea that all this happened in a parliamentary committee room will seem extraordinary!

This is hysterical, the things these people say with straight faces. Maybe they meant there were very few female to trans at the meeting? The account of this parliamentary meeting is just ridiculous. How bad is this really going to get? Yup, hysterical just reporting the facts of trans idiocy.

The message itself is nauseating and so is the cutesy delivery. “Sounds boring, is actually important”, “People are awful”, etc belong on personal blogs or facebook posts, not public statements from people in government positions. Idgaf if she works with “young people,” we don’t need that cheesy infantalizing shit especially regarding serious topics.

Julia Cushion is not a regular member of the Parliamentary staff but an undergraduate student on a sandwich placement. I imagine her views on ‘trans issues’ have been formed mainly or wholly through contact with other students. I see that the LGBT+ association at her university has ‘minority’ reps for ‘bisexual and pansexual’ students, ‘trans’ students (the trans rep is a man who calls himself a lesbian), ‘asexual spectrum and aromantic’ students and even ‘allies’, but none for lesbian or gay students.

My cat wishes me to state that he is highly offended by this appropriation of feline identity. He also identifies as male although he has been coercively assigned as neuter by the shelter vet and her scissors, so Cheryl really should listen. And, I am not speaking over or for cats catselves, I am acting as Louis-cat’s ally and advocate.

Here’s part of their “Vision”. There appears to be a ramping up on the legal front;
“Through TELI, we hope to bring together human rights lawyers, third sector trans activist organisations, academics, equality and diversity experts and members of the trans, non-binary and queer community to pool our knowledge, expertise and skill base to inform both strategic litigation and to assist in lobbying for clear and concrete measures to secure equality and safety for members of the trans community. We also hope to consolidate expertise in this area of law to help inform practitioners and activists.”

Their logo at the top of each page is telling and unintentionally accurate as it has eliminated the female aspect altogether.

Any takers on how the trans community will explain this outburst of violence? Either “well, that person wasn’t a _real_ transwoman because transwomen aren’t violent!” Or “look what the mean cis world made her do!”

I was actually more shocked than usual at this one because it’s so unprofessional. That was absolutely no way to speak about anyone at a parliamentary event when you are employed by the Parliament. Your like or dislike of the participants doesn’t matter.

If I was doing her job and the subject was immigration, which I feel strongly about, my job would be to report the views of those who attended and held the opposing view to mine neutrally. I don’t have to write paeans of praise to them, but I also have to refrain from describing them as “awful” people, minimising or mocking their arguments, and linking to blogs which insult or demonise them.

Honestly this isn’t rocket science, you learn this shit on Day 1 in a job like that so she wouldn’t have “just not known”. What gave her the impression it was alright to be so bold in attacking “the enemy”? I think we all know that.